


When the big one starts to shake

by Renversermonmonde



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, nightmare aftermath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:00:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22038439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Renversermonmonde/pseuds/Renversermonmonde
Summary: Sam wakes up to unexpected, but not unfamiliar sounds. A nightmare and its aftermath.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Sam Wilson
Comments: 8
Kudos: 16
Collections: SamSteve Small Gifts





	When the big one starts to shake

**Author's Note:**

  * For [a-majesti](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=a-majesti).

> Written for SamSteve Small Gifts 2019 - for the lovely [a-majesti](http://a-majesti.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr. I hope you enjoy :) 
> 
> So I wrote this with the acoustic version of Big One by Louden Swain in mind, make of that what you will.

It was late, or early, depending on how you look at it. That time of night where the sky is at its darkest, and this night in particular was dark. Clouds were obscuring the moon and stars, the snow outside dampening all sound. Sam took a moment to gather his bearings, listening out for what had woken him. The creaky floorboard in the kitchen. The fridge opening, then closing. The kettle boiling. Rummaging around in a cupboard. The cutlery drawer opening, then closing. Sam took a deep breath and threw the covers back as he sat up, noting that the other side of the bed was empty, but not cold. He reached for the the small light on his nightstand, but changed his mind at the last second as he noticed the light coming from the gap under the door. 

As he walked into the kitchen, he found Steve hunched over at the kitchen table, head in his hands. The melody of the spoon in the cup of tea rattling and ragged breaths gave some indication of the state Steve was in, if the fact he was sitting at the table didn't give it away already. This was not a good night, likely a train night, or a New York night, or a Hydra night. Really, there was no way of telling and it didn't really matter anyway, they all had the same ending: Steve in a state, unable to sleep for the rest of the night. Sam slowly made his way towards the hunched over man, ensuring to make enough noise to announce his presence without startling him. Sam reached out and put his hand on Steve's shoulder when he reached him, giving it a gentle squeeze to remind him he was there. Tense muscles relaxed a fraction under his hand, the touch grounding Steve, pulling him to the here and now and away from whatever nightmare was still playing in his head. After a while, Sam squeezed Steve's shoulder one more time before moving away and boiling the kettle again, before changing his mind - this was a hot chocolate night. This was going to take a while, he might as well get comfortable. Reluctant as he was to leave Steve, the kitchen floor was freezing under his bare feet and Steve, while a space heater under normal circumstances, tended to get cold at nights like this. 

"Steve, I'm just going to grab you some socks and a blanket, I will be back in a second."  
Sam kept up a steady stream of chatter as he walked to his bedroom, attempting to keep Steve's brain engaged while he wasn't physically in the room. He quickly grabbed two pairs of warm and fluffy socks from his bedroom and a pile of blankets from the hallway closet before making his way back to Steve.  
"Steve, can you get your socks on or do you need a hand?" Sam asked as he placed the fluffiest of the blankets around Steve's shoulders and placing the others on the table, noting the other man had not moved one of his many tense muscles. Steve was unresponsive, leaving Sam to lift his freezing feet and stuff them into the socks before gently placing them back on the floor. He hobbled over to the counter, trying to get his own feet into socks while also checking if they had the ingredients for hot chocolate. Sam grabbed the chocolate and the sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. The steps to making his mom’s signature hot chocolate had been memorised a long time ago, perfect for nights like this. He could probably do this with his eyes closed, Sam thought with a wry smile. He grabbed a small pan - nothing beat making hot chocolate properly, no matter what Peter and Clint claimed - and filled it with milk, leaving it to warm up a bit before adding the other ingredients. Looking over his shoulder at Steve, Sam noticed that he still hadn't moved beyond wrapping his hands around his mug. 

Sam took two mugs out of the cupboard, added the chocolate and spices to the milk and started stirring it slowly so the chocolate would melt and the spices would mix in nicely. Sam would take his without added sugar, but Steve liked his sweeter, so he would add a little after. Soon enough the kitchen was filled with the smell of spiced hot chocolate. Once the hot chocolate was done, Sam put it on the coffee table in the living room, ready for stage two of the Helping Steve Through A Difficult Night Plan: move Steve to the sofa where he would be more comfortable. Sam moved the blankets from the kitchen table to the sofa, ready for piling on top of Steve once he had moved there. Sam took a deep breath, turned up the heating and moved back to Steve, crouching next to him in an attempt to catch his eye. 

"Steve, bud, it's cold here in the kitchen. I've got blankets set up on the couch, we'll be more comfortable there. Come on, I've turned the heating up, but you know the kitchen takes ages to warm up." Steve blinked slowly, only just seeming to become aware Sam was there at all.  
“Did I wake you?” Steve asked.  
“Don’t worry about that, I wasn’t sleeping great anyway. Come on, up and at ‘em, I made hot chocolate and it’s in the living room.” Steve nodded in response - a clear sign he wasn’t fully with it yet - and slowly stood up, making sure the blanket didn’t slide off his shoulders. He shuffled slowly towards the sofa and sat down with a big sigh, trapping the blanket underneath himself without realising.  
“Hold on, Steve you’ve - I said hold on you big lug you’re making this more difficult than it has to be! Move a sec, no forwards, not further back, oh jeez you’re just making things worse here. Come on, scoot forwards a little, that’s it,” Sam muttered as he freed the blanket, before rearranging it and starting an impromptu pillow and blanket fort around Steve. Once that was all in place he moved to hand Steve his mug of chocolate, in his favourite mug, except in building this pillow/blanket fort, Sam had buried Steve’s hands. A few seconds of wriggling later, Steve managed to poke his left hand out of the fort to accept the hot chocolate and bring it to his mouth to take a sip. Steve smiled a little when he noticed what mug Sam had handed him, it exclaims “World’s best Captain!” in wobbly Sharpie letters, complete with a drawing of Spider-man with the shield.  
“Okay, now that we’re set up comfortably here, what do you want? Or, maybe more, what do you need?” Sam asked as he sat down next to Steve, “Is this a ‘fireplace on the TV night’, a movie night, or a ‘fire on the TV and I read to you’ night?” Steve started nodding halfway through the fire-and-reading suggestion, so Sam leant over to grab the book they were reading, before changing his mind and grabbing his ereader. While normally, both him and Steve prefer actual paper books, during nights like this, they both tended to struggle with too much light and the little backlight from the ereader provided enough light to read, but not enough light to disturb.  
“Right, we were about halfway through the sequel to Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, do you remember that?” Sam asked as he got the book up. Steve nodded in response, sipping his hot chocolate, before murmuring “Restaurant at the end of the universe, yes.”  
“Jup, that’s the one. Are you ready?”  
Steve nodded before burrowing down further into his blankets and leaning his head against Sam’s shoulder. Sam shifted, wrapping an arm around Steve instead, pressed a kiss to his hair and settling in for a long night of reading.  


> _“‘Whatever happened to Marvin?” said Trillian. Zaphod clapped his hands to his heads.’The Paranoid Android! I left him moping about on Frogstar World B.’ ‘When was this?’ ‘Well, er, five hundred and seventy-six thousand million years ago I suppose,’ said Zaphod...”_

As expected, it turned into a long night of Steve zoning in and out of listening, but slowly relaxing into Sam’s side. Sam even suspected Steve dozed off a few times. A peaceful end to a difficult night. 

"Marco!" Sam yelled as he unlocked the front door, juggling two cups, a bag full of various bagels and two cinnamon buns.  
"Polo!" Steve replied from somewhere in the apartment, followed by footsteps coming down the hall.  
"Darcy made you a new concoction. I'm not sure what it is, but I can smell the sugar from here!" Sam stated as he managed to get the keys out of the door without dropping anything. The moment he turned around, Steve was there to relieve him of the cups and the bag of food, planted a quick kiss on Sam’s lips before carrying the food and drinks through to the kitchen. Sam took off his coat and shoes, putting them away before following Steve further into the apartment, finding him taking a sip from one of the coffee cups - Sam's to be exact. Steve pulled a face upon realising he was drinking black coffee, causing Sam to laugh.  
"How you managed in the depression is beyond me. You've got such a sweet tooth when it comes to coffee!"  
Steve smiled in return, "Sugar wasn't an option back then and if you wanted something warm, coffee was a good bet. I'm just making up for all those times I drank what tasted like dishwater but was supposedly coffee!"  
Sam laughed again, shaking his head as he opened the bag of bagels.  
"What do you fancy this morning? I bought one of everything on offer, even that weird cinnamon bagel with banana and maple syrup you like so much - are you making up for lost time on sweet stuff in general?"  
Steve nodded, shoving half a cream cheese and salmon bagel in is mouth before attempting to speak.  
"Please don't speak with your mouth full Steve, what would the nation think, knowing Captain America does that!" Steve just grinned in response before swallowing his food.  
"Damn straight I'm making up for lost time, in every way I can. And yes I'll have the banana bagel, even though bananas taste weird now."  
"Yes, yes, I know," Sam laughed, "something happened to the bananas and now they're nasty except for this bagel situation, which, by the way, I'm pretty sure Darcy made up specifically for you!"  
Steve just grinned around the other half of his bagel. He swallowed, washed his bite down with some coffee before speaking: "You're just jealous Darcy experiments on me and not you!" Sam just rolled his eyes before tucking into his own bagel. 

Steve looked better this morning - not great, though Sam was sure he looked far worse. Steve was lucky in the sense that the serum kept him looking nearly flawless no matter how rough a night he had. Sam yawned into his coffee with a small smile. It had been a difficult night, but after the years they had been together, they knew how to take care of each other on a night like this. Sam knew what to for Steve during a difficult night and Steve knew what to do for Sam. It was one of the reasons they work so well.

**Author's Note:**

> Again, this was written for SamSteve Small Gifts 2019 - for the lovely [a-majesti](http://a-majesti.tumblr.com/), I hope you enjoyed it. 
> 
> A quick shout out to Douglas Adams for writing the named books and to my husband for suggesting that as a book.  
Another quick shout out to my dear [buckysknifecollection](https://buckysknifecollection.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr or [ on here ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckysknifecollection/) for endless support and answering my stupid questions and thinking with me at odd hours of the day.
> 
> Come yell about marvel with me on [Tumblr](https://trickstermoose67.tumblr.com/)


End file.
